Respiratory and treatment apparatus for animals having elongated snouts such as horses, cows, sheep, dogs and other such domesticated and wild animals are generally known. For instance, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,843,119; 3,915,165; 2,960,886; and 3,628,532 for some typical prior art devices.
As seen, conventional animal respirators include tanks and valves for supplying oxygen and medicants and relatively large and bulky muzzles for covering the animal's mouth and nostrils. Typically a halter is used to secure the muzzle over the animal's snout though Glasser (U.S. Pat. No. 2,843,119--supra) discloses the use of an inflatable ring or cuff that is connected to a separate air supply through a tire valve. The ring in this instance is used only for the purpose of effecting a seal and not in a muzzle.
Another disadvantage of such prior art devices is that because of their design and size, none are adaptable to serve a principal purpose of this invention--to save malpositioned offspring from suffocation within the parent during birth. That happens frequently enough so that it is a costly limitation to those engaged in producing registered livestock and rare animals such as horse and cattle breeders and zookeepers.